This last week I started to write my first serious post dedicated to corruption in Moldova. While I've touched on the subject a bit in my short post about The DMV or the epic saga that was our visa approval process but nothing dedicated to corruption. As you might have noticed from the title of this post this is not such a post. I realized that even starting that conversation was so daunting without certain background elements explained that it was totally unmanageable in scope. I'll try again soon but in the meantime I decided it was time to share a glimpse into accounting in Moldova - by far the most batshit insane and corrupt part of doing business here bar none.

Let me preface this article by saying that it is just a first effort to scratch the surface of this madness. By no means do I have even a rudimentary grasp on the workings of the accounting and fiscal systems in Moldova and attempts I've made to understand them have come up very short. As a team we've decided that someone needs to start taking night classes on accounting here just to get some idea of what's going on (and we have a full time accountant hired now). So with that said here's a bit about what I do know right now. Pardon me if I made bad assumptions as to intentions or root causes behind these things. After dealing with this for a day it is easy to assume that the system was entirely crafted by unhinged lunatics on a bender and to forget that there are real people trying to address real problems in the government here. That said, as you will see, they are failing spectacularly.

If you're the type of person who scans to the end I'll save you the trouble. The answer to the title question is "No One Knows"...or perhaps "I won't ever tell!" (which is also the name of a rather unfortunate song from Fat Joe).

Ok, what are we actually talking about here? Let's start at the beginning. Ever business needs services. Some of these are easier to farm out than to do internally - often legal and accounting fall into this category. This post is about our experience trying to hire an accountant. This process has turned out to be rather difficult in Moldova. Partly this is because most accountants are uninterested in working with a restaurant due to the high numbers of transactions but it is also because of meetings like the following.

So, we go to meet the senior accountant at a small firm. She came highly recommended to us by a friend who's parent's company contracts with her and she speaks English Russian and Romanian well. Seems perfect. When we arrive we are ushered into a room with her and her firm's Director. It is possible I have mentioned the status of directors in Moldova in the past. In short their importance in an enterprise is only surpassed by their self importance.